


You Drew Stars Around My Scars

by andromedia5



Series: Swiftie Writing Prompts [5]
Category: DCU (Comics), Red Hood and the Outlaws (Comics)
Genre: F/M
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2021-03-14
Updated: 2021-03-14
Packaged: 2021-03-23 00:20:50
Rating: Not Rated
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,306
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/30047025
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/andromedia5/pseuds/andromedia5
Summary: A little bit of a self harm trigger warning, nothing graphic, no one’s actually cutting just discussion of it. That’s kinda why it took me a sec to write this, I kinda Victor Zsaszed again this week and idk . . . But I enjoyed this prompt and I hope you guys like it, kinda healing vicariously through them.
Relationships: Artemis of Bana-Mighdall & Bizarro (DCU) & Jason Todd, Artemis of Bana-Mighdall/Jason Todd
Series: Swiftie Writing Prompts [5]
Series URL: https://archiveofourown.org/series/2160366
Comments: 1
Kudos: 10





	You Drew Stars Around My Scars

**Author's Note:**

> A little bit of a self harm trigger warning, nothing graphic, no one’s actually cutting just discussion of it. That’s kinda why it took me a sec to write this, I kinda Victor Zsaszed again this week and idk . . . But I enjoyed this prompt and I hope you guys like it, kinda healing vicariously through them.

She hadn’t expected anyone to find them. Artemis was no stranger to hiding scars and she usually didn’t around Jason and Bizzaro. They had seen them, trailing up her arms and back, the graveyards of battles long over. They wouldn’t have questioned any of them. She still preferred to keep her legs covered.

Those carefully hidden scars on the inside of her calves, all about an inch in length, covered by her suit, jeans, boots, and when absolutely necessary, she would simply keep her legs pressed firmly together and let the scars hide themselves. She didn’t like seeing them; that was why they were so bad, she had never been able to look at the cuts long enough to bandage them. Each scar was precise and careful, never impulsive or messy because Artemis had meant them all. Everytime she had missed Akila, every moment when she would have killed for her to bump her shoulder against her own, tease her about how seriously she was taking something. She didn’t deserve to mourn someone she could have saved.

Artemis had been curled up on the couch of the woman who might have been the personification of the failings of the American foster care system dressed in frills and lace when she had felt rough fingers brushing at her ankle. Her eyes had snapped open as she shot up, pulling up her feet on instinct. The book Jason had been reading when she had drifted off was propped open on his thigh and he had been pushing up the ankle of her sweatpants. A dusty rose color spread across his cheeks at having been caught. “Sorry, sorry, I just,” he pulled her ankle towards him again and she kicked out, scrambling backwards to the other end of the couch. He dodged her attack, rolling off the couch and looking up at her, puzzled.

“What in the Goddesses's name are you doing?” she hissed at him. Everytime, every single time she was beginning to think he might have been tolerable, every moment he was quiet enough to be at least moderately ignorable he had to go and ruin it.

“I’m sorry, Art. I’m just, shit I didn’t know,”

Something in her stomach dropped, “Know what?”

He tilted his head, brown curls falling over his forehead as he gave her a look. “C’mon, Princess don’t give me that. I’m not that stupid,”

“And yet you could’ve fooled me,” she muttered, taking her typical route out of conversations with him, using her longer legs to walk away.

He jogged a little to keep up with her. “Art. Hey, Artemis, will you just hang on a sec?” his hand wrapped around her wrist and she spun around to face him.

“Do you have a death wish, little one?”

Jason smirked up at her, “Yeah, clearly, have you not been paying attention? Listen, I'm sorry, Red. I just didn’t realize,”

“You don’t know what your talking about,”

“I don’t?”

“No, you don’t. In most situations and this one is no exception,”

“You know you’re really self absorbed, right?”

“I beg your pardon, I’m self absorbed? Do you have any-” Jason pulled his sweatshirt over his head in one swift motion, revealing rumpled hair and narrowed eyes. His gray t-shirt was around the same shade as the Red Hood suit and almost seemed to be a lounge version of his uniform. It wasn’t until he rotated his arms slightly, exposing his forearms and a series of scars she could recognize as easily as ones caused by a certain type of blade. The angle, the length, the depth, it was all the same albeit a little more erratic. Artemis felt her mouth open into a small o. Jason looked uncomfortable but still determined.

“I’d, uh get really angry when I was a kid. I mean I still do but,” he ran a hand through his hair and she felt her eyes following a particularly dark scar (indicating it was more recent) that was exposed by the movement.“They were almost like panic attacks and I’d just need to,” he punched his fist into his palm “Bru-Batman would never spar with me when I was like that. Said if I was angry I wasn’t gonna learn anything so what the hell was the point. First time it was an accident, I was thirteen and had smashed a glass, was kinda having a tantrum. But I got cut on the edge of it and . . . it was like I could breathe again. I broke a razor apart about a week later,”

“And no one stopped you?” she demanded, momentarily forgetting her annoyance, rage boiling in her stomach at the thought of this child; Jason.

“That’s the thing, Arty,” he said, shooting her a sardonic smile “I’d already gotten pretty damn good at hiding scars before I ever got one on purpose”

The silence filled the room for a second, neither one meeting the other’s eyes. “Look, Artemis, I’m not gonna do that whole ‘you shouldn’t do that to yourself’ shit. I know it’s fucking annoying but . . . just, you’re not alone, okay?”

Mercifullym Bizzaro chose that moment to walk in causing Jason to scramble back into his sweatshirt and begin to plan tonight's mission.

It was late when they returned. Bizzaro had left as soon as they had gotten back as he had been doing recently, leaving the two of them alone as they put away their respective weapons and armor. She didn’t know what it was that made her decide to say what she did but for some reason after she had removed the cuffs on her arms she heard her own voice.

“I’ve been clean for a few weeks,”

Jason turned to her, seeming as surprised as she was but pulled off his mask and shook his sweaty hair out of his face. “I’ve got about a month and a half,”

“So not since you’ve met Bizzaro and I?”

He shook his head, switching out the magazines on his guns and folding up his holster.

“Say what you want about our whole team but it’s hard to find the time to . . . that, when you’ve been busy raising hell with a missing amazon and a kidnapped clone.” He pulled out a knife, seemingly out of nowhere, reminding her once again that he was a lot better at this than she gave him credit for. “You know um, Roy told me about this thing they do in rehab for anniversaries. They pick like a symbol or a tracker and use it to celebrate their progress,”

“I see,” Artemis reached for a stray pen, pulling the cap off with her teeth and took his hand in hers. She held his wrist steady, thumb over his pulse point, his heartbeat a steady rhythm through her own hand. The star she drew smudged a bit and bumped over the vein on his forearm but it was there.

He traced the star, looking strangely at peace considering how much they had blown up that night.“Why are we doing your symbol?”

“Because it was _your_ idea,”

“Fair,” he took the marker from her hands, fingers brushing against her own in a way that made her stomach twist embarrassingly. He reached for her leg, pausing about an inch away at meeting her eyes as if for confirmation that this was okay. She nodded and he wrapped his hand gently around her ankle, eliciting a radius of goosebumps as he carefully drew a lopsided star. Jason put the cap back on the marker and looked back up at her, smiling as he raised his arm, “Scar bump?”

Artemis pulled away and got up. “We’re not doing that,”

“C’mon, Red,” he called after her, throwing the pen at her retreating back playfully. “You know there’s also this great Taylor Swift song? You ever listened to 1989?”


End file.
